


Captain Ouroboros

by orphan_account



Series: Ouroboros [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1930s, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Autofellatio, Fruit, Humiliation, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Period-Typical Racism, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Prostitution, Stag Films, implied prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 19:42:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1995459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started like this, with Bucky working as a longshoreman down at the docks, hauling mountains of crates of pineapples off of ships and down the port. The work came in fits and starts, with plenty of time spent simply waiting for boats to dock or for rough weather to pass, and he only got coin for the hours he was actually laboring. </p><p>Bucky would often come home exhausted, wiping sweat off his neck with a rag, and grinning at Steve with a dullness in his eyes that indicated that they'd be lucky to make rent that month.</p><p>'Don't worry, buddy,' he said as he helped himself to a late dinner off the stove. 'We'll make it work somehow.'</p><p>Steve wasn't sure how to believe him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Apples

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be like, a 1k word ficlet about Steve sucking his own cock BUT it got away from me and now its really weird and filled with fruit imagery and I don't understand what happened.

It started like this, with Bucky working as a longshoreman down at the docks, hauling mountains of crates of pineapples off of ships and down the port. The work came in fits and starts, with plenty of time spent simply waiting for boats to dock or for rough weather to pass, and he only got coin for the hours he was actually laboring. 

Bucky would often come home exhausted, wiping sweat off his neck with a rag, and grinning at Steve with a dullness in his eyes that indicated that they'd be lucky to make rent that month. 

'Don't worry, buddy,' he said as he helped himself to a late dinner off the stove. 'We'll make it work somehow.'

Steve wasn't sure how to believe him. Just coming through the other side of a fever which had kept him bedridden for weeks, he'd lost the job he'd had making piano strings at a music shop a few blocks down. He'd liked that job. It had been fine work, operating a small lathe, and it was delicate but industrial. But the owner could only afford to employ one person to do it, and with Steve out of commission, someone else had already filled the position. 

And now. Well, he was looking, but there was very little going around, and most of it was hard labor. The foremen would take one look at Steve and laugh. 

'I'm sorry, pal,' Steve said, already scrubbing at the pot that Bucky had polished off on the stove, buried to his elbows in sudsy sink water. If he couldn't contribute to them financially, the very least he could do was keep things running smoothly at home. 'I'll find something soon.'

'Hey, hey now,' Bucky replied, shaking his head. His spoon hovered between the bowl and his mouth, dripping stew. 'Didn't I _just_ say we'd make it work?'

Which was all very well to say, but relied on things entirely out of their control, like the temperaments of the weather, and shipments of bananas, crates of pineapples, and barrels of corn-syrup. As much as Bucky came home smelling of sweat and the ocean, he also carried the lingering scent of sweetness and tropical fruits as often as not. 

*

There was a fruit stand near the corner of Cranberry street, which didn't actually carry any cranberries. Steve went by it that following Tuesday. What he didn't know, was that the large brick building behind the little sweetly scented stand, with its tall blue doors with chipped paint and its planked up windows, was one of the few local businesses hiring. 

He'd find out soon enough. 

But for now, he just passed by the fruit stand with its large metal scales and crates of pale apples, breathed in the appealing fragrance, and moved on without stopping. 

He was heading home, no better off than he'd set out. It was late afternoon, and the sun was hidden behind a thick barrier of cloud which threatened to downpour any moment. Steve would be inside soon, hopefully before the rain started, but Bucky wouldn't be back for at least another hour or two. Steve hoped he wouldn't get caught in a torrent on his way back from the docks. 

Steve passed under the Brooklyn Bridge overpass just as those blue doors with the chipped paint opened a few blocks behind him, letting out a young woman who was straightening the hemline of her dress and carrying a significant amount of money in her purse, which had not been there before. 

Steve didn't see this. What he saw was the road before him, peppered with people passing and a couple of beggars under the bridge. They had their caps out in front of them, empty, and their heads bowed to the ground. He saw a crowd of boys, no older than twelve, lingering outside a shop with its signage all torn and ratted. He saw a line stretching outside the building up the road which advertised 'FREE CUP COFFEE & DONUTS FOR THE UNEMPLOYED', but Steve didn't feel like waiting in line for another hour for a stale old doughnut. 

He saw, as he walked through the streets of DUMBO, his and Bucky's apartment, on the top floor of a three-story building, and, to his surprise, Bucky leaning out of the window, smoking. 

Coming up underneath, Steve craned his neck back. 'What are you doing?' he called out. 

'Strike,' Bucky called back, ash falling through the gray air like snowflakes. While his posture looked relaxed, elbows resting on the scratched wood of the window panels and cigarette hanging loosely from between his fingers, Steve could see the distress etched into his features even from below. 

'Isn't the point of a strike actually to, you know,' Steve replied, and Bucky shrugged and snorted derisively. 

'Maybe if they were going it over pay or how much work we've been getting or something,' he called down. He put on a mocking voice. '“ _Coloreds are takin' our jobs! Waterfronts for the Irish and Italians only!_ ” Bullshit.'

Steve dropped his head, letting out a low groan. 

'Anyway, I give it a day or two,' Bucky said. 'You coming up?'

'Yeah,' Steve replied, and let himself into the stairwell. The cigarette butt fell to the pavement behind him, sparks getting caught on the air and drifting down like fading fireworks. When he reached the top of the stairs, the door to their apartment was already open, but Bucky had sprawled out on the couch, his arms folded. 

'When is rent due again?'

Bucky put one hand to his mouth, biting on his middle fingernail and quirking an unhappy smile at Steve. 'Friday?'

'Shit.'

'Yeah,' Bucky said, and slouched even further down on the chair. 'We're about five dollars off. If I can pick up some odd jobs over the next couple of days we'll be alright.'

'There's not a lot of odd jobs going, Bucky.'

Bucky just looked up at him and raised his eyebrows. 'I know where to find some things,' he said. 'I'll take care of it. You have any luck today?'

Steve thought of the hours spent going door to door looking for jobs that didn't exist, and the anxiety and tension making his heart palpitate and his chest constrict, and said, 'Not today. There's always tomorrow.'

'Yeah,' Bucky replied. 'There's always tomorrow.'

Dinner was tomato soup from a can and a few pieces of toast that were getting a bit stale. 

*

Steve walked by the fruit stand again the next afternoon, tired and discouraged. His feet were aching from a day spent walking about the city, stopping anywhere he might find work and moving on when he was turned away. The day was clearer, the sky cloudless and blue, and it was the sort of day that Bucky might come home with plenty of money in his pocket if the longshoremen weren't still striking. 

But they were. So he wouldn't.

'Hey, you came by this way yesterday,' a voice called out, and Steve glanced over at the man standing behind the fruit stand. He had a face like an overripe apple, all wrinkled and splotched yellow and red, and an old-fashioned cravat with his badly ironed shirt and corduroy coat. 'You looking for work?'

Steve nodded, skeptical, and wandered over. It was a fruit stand, the guy could run it by himself. That is, unless he needed someone to lift crates, but that wasn't exactly work suited to Steve either. 

'You hiring, sir?' Steve asked, and the apple-faced man laughed. 

'Not me,' he replied, and nodded his head towards the blue door behind him. The paint was scratched and worn, showing hard wood underneath. 'Them.'

There was a moment of silence as Steve looked at the building, up at the windows with plywood nailed on the inside to keep people from seeing in. Steve had never been in there, but he knew what sort of a building it was. 

'… That's a brothel,' Steve said flatly. 

'They've expanded their business,' the man said, ignoring how Steve was furrowing his eyebrows and shuffling on his feet, ready to move on. 'They're part of the film industry now.'

'Well, that's swell for them,' Steve said, and tried to smile politely at the fruit and brothel house purveyor. 'But I'll be off. Thanks for the... tip.'

'They don't care what the fellas look like,' the man called after him as Steve walked off hurriedly towards the bridge underpass. 'All you gotta do is spend half an hour fucking a dame, and you'll walk away with a healthy paycheck!'

Steve lifted his hand in an uncomfortable wave, and turned the corner. 

*

Bucky came home not long after Steve, dumping some coins on the table. The sound of metal hitting wood rung out through the apartment over the hum of traffic outside. 

'It's not enough for rent,' Bucky said, wandering over and dropping to kneel so that his arms were folded on the back of the couch. Steve was sitting on the sofa, sketchpad in hand and a few rough lines drawn onto the page. 'And we gotta eat between now and Friday, too. Did you have any luck?'

'Not as such,' Steve replied as he carried on sketching. He was drawing a tree, hanging heavy with apples, some small and rotting, scattered on the ground. 

'Maybe you could pull in a few bucks drawing Tijuana bibles,' Bucky said with a smirk, and Steve flicked him on the nose with the end of his pencil. 

'Maybe I could, jerk,' he replied. 

'Make 'em about me.' Bucky got up off the floor, stretched and wandered over to the bedroom, pulling off his shirt. ' _Bucky Barnes in “Grind the Behind”._ ' 

Steve couldn't help but laugh, and was still snickering into his fist when Bucky came back into the living room in a fresh t-shirt. 'I don't wanna draw you grinding nothing, Buck,' Steve said. 'I know how that'd go. You sitting over my shoulder, “Make it longer. No, longer. Another inch.”'

'Not my fault if you can't get my proportions right,' Bucky said. 

Steve snorted, and Bucky threw himself down on the sofa, forcing Steve to bring his knees up. 

'Hey, Bucky,' Steve said, after a moment of comfortable silence.

'Mmm?'

'You ever seen a stag film?'

The amused smirk on Bucky's face crept up slowly, lighting him up. His tongue darted out to touch his top lip as he tried to fight back his grin. 'Yeah, Steve, I have.'

'You don't have to sound so proud of yourself.' 

'Nah, I've only the once. They showed a few when Earl got hitched and we went out after work.'

'What are they like?'

Bucky laughed, throwing his head back. 'Nothing like the real thing!' he said, amused. 'I dunno, ten minutes of a dame taking her clothes off slowly in the mid-distance, then a few minutes of keen rutting. You never, ever see a dick unless someone is getting peed on, and they try way too hard to be funny.'

'Alright,' Steve replied, going back to shading his apples. 

'Why?'

'Just curious, and we were talkin' about eight pagers.'

'Next time I get invited to a smoker I'll bring you along, pal,' Bucky said, scruffing Steve's hair. 

Steve just kept drawing, trying to convince himself he wasn't considering the proposition from earlier.

*

If there was one way Steve didn't want to lose his virginity, it was on camera, with a stranger, positioned in the middle distance. Pausing every two and a half minutes to change film reels. 

But that didn't mean he didn't have anything else to offer. 

The air in the room was thick with smoke and the smell of musk and cellulose nitrate. Steve eyed the Keystone 8mm camera nervously, and started to unbutton his shirt, tugging his tie from around his neck. He hoped the murky air wouldn't trigger his asthma.

'Well, he ain't much one to look at,' one of the men sitting behind the camera said around the cigarette dangling from his lips. 'But if you say he's got a gift, I can get on board with that.'

The other man (Steve had met this guy, his name was Eugene, the apple-faced fruit vendor had introduced him) just shrugged and said, 'I didn't say he got a gift, _he_ said he got a gift. Good for the novelty crowd.'

'Alright, whatever you say. It ain't like anyone is payin' for how the fellas look.'

'Except maybe a few queers here 'n there.'

Both men laughed. 

'You ready, kid?' 

Steve swallowed and said with a bravado he didn't feel, 'Sure, lets do it.'

Sitting on the table over by the far wall was a stack of bills. It was enough to cover rent on its own. Through the walls Steve could hear what was going on in the other rooms, the sounds of beds squeaking and women moaning dispassionately. He'd never been inside a brothel before, and he wasn't particularly fond of it. 

After a short hesitation, he undid his belt and started to shuck out of his trousers. He was on a plain bed over by the wall, and tried not to think about what this bed had been through already.

'Ah, you can leave 'em on,' the man who wasn't Eugene said from behind the camera. 'Just get it out, should be fine. I can't believe we're filming this, I don't wanna see this kid suck his own cock.'

Eugene was leaning against the wall, grinning encouragingly at Steve. 'What are you on about, Frank? Who _wouldn't_ wanna see this? Damn impressive, I've tried plenty of times and I'm always a solid six inches away.'

'That's 'cause you ain't got the six inches to bridge the gap.'

As the men talked, Steve pulled himself out of his underwear, starting to slowly stroke himself to hardness in the indifferent, dismal environment. 

'No,' Eugene replied, 'It's because I've got a spine.'

'You've got a spine, don't you, kid?' the man who was apparently called Frank asked Steve, who raised his eyebrows and nodded. 

'I hope so,' he said, dryly, as he twisted his fingers on the head of his cock. 'I don't think I'd be doing this otherwise.'

Both men laughed. 

'Alright,' Frank reported, fiddling around with the camera and repositioning himself on his small stool. He butted out his cigarette on the floor, and gave Steve the thumbs up. 'We're good to go, are you good to go?'

Steve shuffled back a little on the bed, bringing his hips forward in line with his mouth. This was somewhat easier lying on his back with his legs over his head, but he didn't feel like he should do that here. He needed a position easier to hold for a longer period of time and get out of when they needed to reload the film. So he rolled his shoulders forward, held his cock with his hand, and waited for Frank to give him an overly dramatic and boisterous:

'Aaaand, _ACTION_!'

Steve couldn't help but glance at the camera before he folded himself in half. It was whirring noisily, making him extremely self conscious, but also, to his surprise, making him feel somewhat excited, turned on. He felt a flush rise high on his cheeks that wouldn't be visible on the black and white film, and lowered his head to take the head of his cock into his own mouth. 

He wasn't sure why he was able to do this, he just knew it was a skill he'd always possessed. For the most part, Steve wouldn't say that he was particularly flexible. He supposed it was possible that he'd been born with some birth defect that meant he was missing a couple of ribs or there was something wrong with his spine. That wouldn't surprise him. It would be quite typical, really. Maybe his penis was moderately longer than the norm as well, that would certainly help.

His cock was heavy and warm in his mouth, tasting of salt and the pith of an orange for some reason. Unable to take the entirety of his erection into his mouth, Steve just relaxed, slowly crumpling in on himself so that he could fit as much as he could against his tongue, and hollowed his cheeks. 

Steve almost forgot he was being filmed. 

It always felt good to do this, to taste himself on his own palette, to feel his cock twitch and pulse at his own bidding. He liked the way his saliva would slip down his shaft, smoothing the way, and the flavor of his cock would get thicker, heavier; invade his senses as precum beaded at the tip. It was a build up of action and return, self-reflexivity and accumulation of reactive pleasure. 

He lost track of time, but it can't have been longer than a minute or two, as Frank's rough voice suddenly broke through Steve's haze of pleasure and said: 'Hold up, kid, gotta change the reel.'

Steve blinked, and regretfully pulled his mouth away from his penis, licking saliva and precum off his lips. His neck twinged a little as he straightened it for a moment, glancing at Eugene in the dim room, who gave him two thumbs up and a wide grin. 

'This is _aces_ ,' he enthused. Steve just wet his lips and blinked slowly, trying to reign in the swell of pleasure he was feeling and align it with the discomfort of being watched and filmed. He wasn't sure which was more disconcerting; Frank's slightly perturbed discomfort, or Eugene's avid keenness: he was basically bouncing on his heels. 

The camera clicked shut and Frank called out, 'Back in positions!'

Steve took the head of his cock back into his mouth at the same time as Eugene muttered, 'You know you're not a real director, right, Frank?'

'Shut up, Gene.'

The camera started rolling again, whirring and clicking, and Steve couldn't help but moan, sinking his mouth down his shaft as far as he could. With his hands, he shifted slightly to grip his thighs and push his hips up, focusing on keeping his balance as he brought more of his penis into his mouth. That citrus-like, pithy taste was being wholly overwhelmed by the heavy salted flavor of his own precum leaking onto his tongue, and he loved it. 

Eugene was laughing somewhere off to the side, clapping twice and (although Steve couldn't see) punching the air. 

'Calm down, you knucklehead,' Frank muttered from behind the camera. 'Let the boy fellate himself in peace, Jesus.'

Steve was grateful for that. He just wanted to sink into himself, imagine the gloomy brothel and Frank and Eugene weren't there, and that no one was ever going to see this. A shiver of excitement passed down his spine whenever he thought about the future audience of this recording, and it made his cock throb between his lips, but still. Simultaneously, a ball of anxiety would start to tense in his stomach and he'd start over thinking it, get absorbed in the reality of the situation, and then, well. That wasn't so great. 

So he ignored the outside world and the ache in his neck, and focused solely on the slick slide of his cock-head into his mouth, the way saliva and precum slipped down his shaft and his tongue pressed against his frenulum, sending pleasure shooting into his tightening balls. 

It was a stop and start process, carrying on for several more changes of film reel, but finally Frank said: 'You may as well come whenever you can, kid, no one's gonna want to watch more than ten minutes of this 'cept Eugene.'

'If you could get it on your face that'd be snazzy,' Eugene piped up, and Steve hummed out an affirmative noise around his cock, ducking his mouth down as far as he could. 

He'd been lingering on the edge of orgasm for a little while: had gotten so close to the brink just before Frank had last changed film reels that he'd had to squeeze tight on the base of his cock until it hurt. His neck and back were starting to throb uncomfortably in time with the blood pulsing in Steve's erection, which he could feel thudding against his tongue. His shaft was wet and glistening, covered in a mix of fluids, and his lips were swollen and red, shiny with it too.

The last thing he thought before his cock pulsed, filling his mouth with come and making him moan deep in his throat was: 'Shit, what if Bucky sees this?'

He pulled off his cock just in time to roughly jack himself and to the last few spurts of come on his face. It dripped over his mouth and chin, just as Frank switched off the camera and called, 'And _scene_.'

Steve sat up, and reality crashed into him like a brick as a wad of cash was pressed into his hands by Eugene, and Steve just said a distant: 'Thanks.'

He all but ran home. 

*

Steve had always been great at diving in head first and thinking about consequences later. Usually that tendency had resulted in him wiping away blood from his mouth, not semen. 

It was dark outside the brothel, the sun having set while he was inside. The fruit stand was packed up and empty, just a wooden frame and a large, hanging scale. Steve hurried past it, towards DUMBO, scrubbing his hands over his mouth and chin to check for any stray flecks of come. It wasn't a long walk home, but it was long enough for him to hear the thudding of his heartbeat in his ears and taste nervous bile at the back of his throat. 

People were going to see that. People were going to _see that_. There was no avoiding the fact: the image of him would be poured out of dusty projectors and through smoke filled rooms to crowds of men for... shit, Steve didn't know. Maybe years. Maybe forever. 

He had agreed to it, he reminded himself. He knew that going in, and he had a wad of cash in his pocket that made a convincing argument for not regretting his actions. It wasn't like he'd be recognized and stopped on the street – no one watching those films would be paying attention to his face. 

Bucky was leaning out the window again as he turned into their street. He wasn't smoking this time. 

'Hell, Steve, I was about to come looking for you!' he called down, his hands gripping the window pane as he tilted himself further forwards. 'I was starting to think I'd find you beaten up in an alley somewhere!'

Steve just looked up, forcing the most relaxed grin he could onto his face. 'Evening, Buck!'

'Oh, don't you _dare_ ,' Bucky said, but his posture was softening as he looked at Steve, checking he wasn't injured. 'Where the hell have you been?'

'Working,' Steve replied, and stopped on the front steps, pulling out the cash from his pocket and flashing it up at Bucky, who's eye's went wide like headlights. 'Do you wanna come downstairs and go get some dinner?'

'You're kidding me.' Bucky leaned further out the window, looking both delighted and shocked. 'How the hell did you get that?'

'Hauling crates for a fruit vendor,' Steve lied, and apparently it came out smooth and convincing enough that, although Bucky raised a skeptical eyebrow, he didn't question him on it immediately. 

'Alright, hold up,' Bucky called down, and ducked inside the window. Looking up, Steve could see the shadow of him pulling on a jacket, then he heard the door open and shut, and a second later Bucky was barreling down the stairs and out the front door, lifting Steve bodily off the ground as he pulled him into a hug. 

'A fruit vendor, huh?' he said as he let Steve down onto the ground. He grabbed the money out of his hand and counted it. 'Jesus, Steve, you must have moved a _lot_ of boxes.'

'It was a one time thing,' Steve replied and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He wondered if Bucky was going to question him on how he really got the money... but then, Steve never questioned it when Bucky somehow came into a mysterious windfall right when it was needed, so hopefully his friend would return the favor. 'But, hey, don't need to worry about rent this month.'

'Or next, almost,' replied Bucky, and rolled the cash up, tucking it into Steve's front pocket. 'It's a good thing you're so pathologically honest and kind, or I'd think there was no _way_ you could make bank like this doing a days work for a fruit stand.'

'Surprised me too,' Steve said, and this time, he was telling the truth.


	2. Vanilla

Over the following weeks, life got a little easier. The longshoremen stopped striking, and Bucky went back to work. His shoulders would strain as he carried boxes and hauled pulleys, and he knew he reeked of sweat and seawater every day, but the weather was keeping and the ships were coming in regular. 

Better still, Steve found a job at a book-store. He, unlike Bucky, came home smelling of that musty, grassy smell of paper and a lingering scent of vanilla. His job was a steady paycheck, the same every week, and unlike longshoremen, book vendors rarely went on strike.

However, Bucky couldn't help but notice that Steve seemed constantly, unusually on edge. 

'What the hell has gotten into you?' Bucky snapped as Steve glanced over his shoulder for the third time in the space of five minutes. 

'That guy was lookin' at me,' Steve replied with an edge to his voice that usually portended him getting himself into a dumb fight. Bucky rolled his eyes and grabbed his friend by the collar to make sure he didn't turn around and take issue with the poor fella. 

'If he was,' he replied, 'it's only because you look like a suspicious little shit at the moment. What's with the furtive glances and the shifty posture, pal? You look like you're gonna flash someone.'

Steve spluttered. 'Bucky, geez, I would _never_...!'

'Of course not!' Bucky laughed. 'I _know_ , I'm only making fun. Relax.'

'Alright.'

'Alright. Are _you_ alright?'

'Yeah.'

'Do you wanna see a movie?'

Steve's response was an instantaneous and vehement, 'No!'

Bucky stopped in the street. It was a nice day, and neither of them had to work. The sun was warming the pavement underfoot and the dusty windows of the buildings they passed were glinting sunlight like burnished metal. Yet Steve was still wearing a coat with the collars turned up and just being _weird_. 

'Come on,' he said, waiting for Steve to stop in his step and turn around to face him, which he did, reluctant and rolling his eyes. 'What's wrong? Are you going to do something stupid, buddy?'

Steve let out a long sigh. 'What if I said I'd already done something stupid?'

'That wouldn't come as a surprise.' Bucky took a step forward, reaching out to brush a few flecks of drifting pollen off Steve's shoulders. He'd be getting hay-fever soon. 'What'd ya do?'

'I don't wanna say,' Steve replied, looking at his shoes. 'I didn't get hurt, I didn't hurt nobody, and it's probably never going to come up again, so you can drop it.'

'I don't think that I can, if it's bothering you this much. What's it got to do with? A dame?'

Steve snorted, still tracing the cracks in the pavement with his eyes. 'No, Buck.'

'Money, then?' Bucky asked, and Steve just shrugged. 'You in debt?'

'No, everything is fine. We won't be getting a visit from any mobsters any time soon.'

Bucky looked Steve over, assessing him, and chewed his tongue thoughtfully. 'Do you regret whatever it was you did?'

He watched Steve mull that over for a long moment, and pulled them to the edge of the sidewalk, out of the way of traffic. 'No,' Steve said eventually. 'No, I'm glad I did it. Let's go see a film.'

Narrowing his eyes, Bucky licked his thumb and straightened up a stray hair on Steve's temple. 'Two minutes ago,' he said, as Steve swatted his hand away with a _humph_. 

'I know what I said, Bucky,' he interrupted. 'You wanted to see that Humphrey Bogart one, about the clip joint? Let's go see if it's showing.'

'Am I ever gonna find out what it is you've gone and done?' Bucky muttered, but threw his arm around Steve's shoulder and felt him relax into the friendly embrace. 

Steve looked down again, and Bucky could see him grinning. 'Not if I can help it,' he said. 

*

It turned out, Steve couldn't help it. It was entirely out of his hands, Bucky realized, as he sat in the smoke filled room with the whirring projector overhead.

Out of his hands, and inside his mouth. 

It was Jimmy from the docks' stag party, and the room was choked with plumes of tobacco and whiskey fumes. Bucky was choking on his whiskey. Steve, on the reel, was _not_ choking on his cock – he was taking it down smoothly and easily, his body basically crumpled in half. 

But Bucky could barely see the image on screen – the way Steve's lips shaped around the head of his penis, the way the muscles in his thighs twitched as he tried to take himself further – because all that was imprinted on his vision was Steve's short, nervous glance to the camera in the first few seconds of film. The way his eyes (and even with the grainy footage, the way the frames flashed past like someone was blinking rapidly, they were definitely, definitively _Steve's eyes_ ) widened as he looked into the camera was burnt into Bucky's retina. And then, amazingly, the way one corner of Steve's mouth had twitched up into a soft smirk on the film before he turned away and swallowed down his own cock. 

'Jesus Christ,' Bucky muttered, his hand clenching so tight on his glass of whiskey that it could shatter any moment. _What the hell had Steve gone and done?!_

'Something, ain't it?' Henry replied, sitting beside him and puffing on a thick cigar. Bucky didn't register the words. He could feel the blood pounding in his ears and his heart was thudding so fast in his chest that he almost wondered if Steve's arrhythmia was contagious. He looked around him, dragging his gaze away from the flickering image on screen, and tried to take in the other party goers. No one else seemed to have recognized Steve. They were all still relaxed, some laughing and pointing as they talked to each other, but none of them frozen in a shocked trance like Bucky. 

He didn't know what to do. Part of him wanted to escape (he shouldn't be seeing this, _Steve wouldn't want him to be seeing this_ ) and part of him wanted to get up and shut down the projector so that no one else could see Steve like this because this, this, it didn't... it didn't _belong_ to them.

But he didn't move. His eyes fixed back on the screen and he _couldn't_ move. He was rooted to the spot. 

There was a taste in the back of Bucky's mouth like vanilla and his throat was dry. His tongue was subconsciously pressed to the back of his top teeth, making his mouth feel full in a mimicry of what he could see before him. He wished it wasn't, but his cock was filling with blood and there was a shooting feeling of arousal making his insides squirm and his spine tingle. His blood was running cold as guilt ran through his veins. 

He knew he should not be watching this, but he couldn't tear his gaze away. 

On the grainy and diffused film, Steve's fingers tightened on his thighs and he ducked his head down further, swallowing down even more of his cock. Part of his hair, long at the front, fell loose over his face just like it always did when he was hunched over drawing. 

Bucky watched right until his friend came in his own mouth and pumped another spurt of thick come over his own swollen lips: and inside his trousers, Bucky felt his cock pulse in answer. 

He left as soon as the reel changed, muttering some excuse and a distracted congratulations to Jimmy as he tried to ignore the uncomfortable clinging sensation of his come drying in his pants. 

*

Bucky stumbled through the door to their apartment long after Steve had presumably gone to bed, and as soon as he was inside it suddenly felt as though his legs were going to collapse from under him. Steve's coat hung on the wall next to the door, and Bucky fell more or less face forward into it as he tried to hold himself up and process what he'd seen. 

The smell of books and dust and the faint sickly scent that Steve always carried on his clothes filled his senses. 

_This must be it_ , Bucky thought. _The stupid thing you did._

He stayed like that for the longest time, face buried into the rough fabric of the coat and knowing he needed to move to wash his underpants and get to bed and just simply process. He hadn't had that much to drink, just a few tumblers of whiskey, but he felt absolutely wrecked. 

Steve's voice was scratchy and hoarse as if he'd just climbed out of bed when it broke through Bucky's stupor. 

'That you, Buck?'

 

Forcing himself to move, Bucky lifted up his head and found himself swaying slightly on his feet as he looked at Steve. He was wearing just a pair of shorts and an old tank, hair sticking up at all angles and his eyes blinking heavily. Rubbing at them, Steve's brows furrowed as he caught the look on Bucky's face. 

'You drunk? It was Jerry- Jimmy's thing tonight, yeah?'

Bucky found that he could barely form words. How soft and sleepy Steve looked right now was clashing dramatically with what he'd just walked away from, and he was struggling to make sense of anything. 

'What the hell, Steve?' he finally managed to croak out, and his friend's expression grew more confused in answer. 

'Huh?' Steve took a step closer to Bucky. His arms were coming out, ready to help Bucky across the room and into bed as they always did when he came home drunk. For him to lean on Steve for support that he didn't quite have the physical strength for but somehow always managed anyway. 

Bucky shrank back, one hand still clenched in the fabric of the coat hanging on the wall. He knew how this went, with Steve helping him strip down and getting him a glass of water and an aspirin for the morning. That couldn't happen, not now. 

Steve paused in his step when he saw the way Bucky flinched away. 

'Are you okay?' he asked. 

'You...' Bucky ran a hand through his hair, trying to pull himself together. He took a deep breath. 'Why would you do that, Steve? You never have to, we would have been fine.'

Steve glanced back over his shoulder, as if wondering if there was something in their bedroom behind them he was meant not to have done, and there was still an expression of utter bemusement written on his sharp features. 

'What...?' he mumbled, and scratched at his neck, eying Bucky carefully. 'Did something happen at Jimmy's—'

'Stag night,' Bucky supplied. 'Yeah, you could say that.'

'Stag night,' Steve repeated, and then a look of comprehension and horror passed over his face. 'Oh. Oh _no_ , Bucky, you didn't see-'

Bucky watched Steve carefully, the way his shoulders tensed up and his eyes widened, his fingers clenching into the skin of his bare thighs: almost as they had in the stag film. Bucky scrubbed a hand down his face, still feeling unsteady. 'Was this the stupid thing you did?' he asked. 

Steve just nodded, meeting Bucky's eyes and gnawing on his bottom lip. 

' _What the hell, Steve?!_ '

'Well, we needed the--'

'Don't you dare say “money”,' Bucky interrupted. 'Don't you dare. I would have worked _something_ out myself.'

That seemed to light a sudden fire in Steve; inside the little furnace of his person, so easily inflamed. His eyes went hard and his jaw came up. His curved back straightened as much as it could, his shoulders uneven; but set and ready to fight. 'Why does it have to be _you_ “working something out”,' he snapped, and suddenly the sleep-soft Steve was gone, melted away by spitting fire. 'I hate feeling useless, Bucky. I _hate_ it. And I know you're doing your best, and I know its not fair but sometimes, goddammit, I hate _you_ when you go off and do God knows what to get us the money we need and try to keep me in the dark like I don't _know_ , Bucky. You're always trying to protect me, but I hate feeling like I can't do anything. I was just pulling my weight. And it worked. So I don't really know what the hell you're complaining about.'

Bucky gritted his teeth, pushing himself off the wall fully and finally letting go of the coat. He took a step forward. 'What I do,' he replied, 'doesn't get _filmed_. Everyone saw that, Steve. Everyone.'

Bucky was pleased to see hesitation suddenly twist into Steve's expression. He paused for a moment before asking, 'Did anyone recognize...'

'No, no I don't think so. Not yet.' Bucky tugged at his short hair in frustration. He couldn't believe they were having this argument while Bucky still had tacky come drying in his trousers. 'But they will, Steve. Someone who ain't just me.'

'Well, it's done now,' Steve replied, clearly trying for stout and unflappable. His small, clenched fists betrayed him. 'I wasn't planning to go into politics anyway.'

'Fuck, Steve...'

'I wanna go back to bed. You can chide me in the morning.'

The soft moonlight coming in from the living room window caught on Steve's vanilla-cream shoulders as he turned his back on Bucky, moving almost silently even as he clearly tried to stomp his way out of the room, bare feet on hardwood floor. 

'You're an idiot,' Bucky said. 

Steve just threw a short, 'In the morning,' over his shoulder, and slipped into their bedroom. He left the door open for Bucky to follow. 

He often did this when they argued, Bucky realized. Left an opening for them, a suspended argument where the tension still hung in the air, but it was clear that Steve's ire at Bucky wasn't enough for him to treat their friendship any differently. Right now it was uncomfortable because Bucky himself was still so, so, dumbfounded by Steve's actions, and couldn't face him for more reasons than just being unable to believe that _that_ was something Steve would do. 

Instead of shadowing him into the bedroom, Bucky stepped into the bathroom and stripped the clothes off the lower half of his body, perfunctorily washing the stained sections in their little sink. He pulled some recently worn, but cleaner and dryer underpants from the wicker hamper in the corner, and stalked back to the bedroom, shedding his other clothes on the way. 

Steve was lying in his bed and facing the wall, his manifold blankets tugged up over his shoulders despite the mild weather. 

'What were you washing?' he asked, voice muffled by fabric. 

Bucky climbed into his own bed and stared up at the ceiling, lit only by the soft glow of the street through the curtains. 'Never you mind,' he replied. 

There was silence for a long moment, then Steve said: 'Can I ask you something?'

'Yeah, fine, what?' Bucky knew he sounded terse, but at this point he kind of just wanted to sleep. Somehow chase the image of Steve's lips around his own cock out from behind his eyelids. 

Although, in reality, he knew he would dream of it later that night.

'What was it like?' 

'What are you asking, Steve?'

'Well, the film.' Steve's voice was barely audible, still muted by fabric, but suddenly also shy. 'I, uh, I never saw it. Did it... was it... I don't know what I'm trying to get at. Was I okay? Was it, I dunno, tasteful?'

Bucky couldn't help but snort in dry amusement. 'I don't know, Stevie, you tell me. How _did_ it taste?'

'Like orange pith,' Steve answered, seemingly without thinking. Then he added: 'And shut up. You know what I meant.'

'It wasn't tasteful,' Bucky said. 'It was a fucking stag film. It was smut. It was...' He took a deep breath, weighing what he could say. 'It was damn impressive, I guess. I'll give you that much, Steve.'

From beneath the sheets, Steve made a soft noise that Bucky couldn't interpret. Bucky threw an arm over his eyes and closed them. 

'How much did you watch?' Steve asked, equally quietly, still turned away. 

When Bucky replied, 'All of it,' Steve let out another soft noise, this one almost a rough, muffled whimper. 

'Why?' he asked, voice thick.

'Why, what?'

'Why watch the whole thing?'

Bucky couldn't answer. Any excuse seemed to fizzle and dry on his tongue like droplets of water on searing metal. Finally all he managed to get out was: 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have.'

There was a soft sound, the blankets rustling, and then Steve just mumbled, 'I don't mind. I like...'

He trailed off, and Bucky waited for him to continue, but he didn't. He cleared his throat. 'You like what?'

The reply came so quiet as to almost be inaudible. 'To be watched.' There was a moments pause, and then Steve added. 'Or, I think. I dunno. The idea of it.' He muttered something else, and this time the words were entirely indistinguishable. 

'What was that?' Bucky asked. 

Steve spoke again, repeating himself, but still quietly, so that Bucky had to strain to hear him over the distant sounds of traffic outside and the noises of water in the pipes. 

'By you.'

This was too much for one night, Bucky thought. 'Jesus, Steve.'

'I'm sorry, but. But did you, fuck,' Steve took in a hissing breath, and Bucky breathed out. The huff rustled the hairs on his forearm where it was still slung over his face. 'Did _you_ like it? You watched the whole thing.'

Bucky grimaced. He had come untouched when Steve did. He wasn't going to say that out loud. Why weren't they fighting? It would be easier to be fighting. He tried to close his eyes even tighter, as if doing so would force him asleep, let him escape. 

He didn't reply. 

Unfortunately, Steve continued, his voice breathless and stilted. Presumptuous, Bucky thought. 

'Because... because, when I, on the film, when I finished I was thinking about if, if you ever saw it. I wanted you to like it.'

'Dammit, Steve,' Bucky groaned, and then froze, listening more carefully to the sounds in the room. 'Are you getting off, right now?' He sounded incredulous to his own ears. 

Steve's reply of, 'No...' sounded unconvincing. Reluctantly, Bucky lifted his arm off from his face and glanced over at his friend. 

To Steve's credit, he wasn't touching himself. He had shifted the blankets off his body and was now lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling and gripping his fingers into the sheets below him, his hips canting up a little off the bed where he was obviously, evidently turned on. His erection bulged inside his thin undershorts. It was hard to see properly in the dim light, but Bucky could tell that his cheeks were aflame, and he was biting at his lip so hard that it wouldn't be a surprise if he drew blood. 

His head turned slowly as he noticed that Bucky was now looking at him. 

'I...' Steve started. 'Could I? Would you watch me?'

Bucky glared at him, wishing--

He didn't know what he was wishing. Not this. Or _exactly this_ , maybe. Fuck. 

'I oughta have it out with you,' he answered. 'Right now. Or I oughta walk right outta here.'

Steve shook his head. 'Fight in the morning,' he insisted. 'Will you watch me?'

Bucky's tongue was like lead in his mouth. He felt like he did while hauling boxes down at the docks, like one wrong step and he'd drop something, send things spilling everywhere. Fuck it up. He felt like he did down at the docks on hot days, when the sun beat down on him and made sweat break out on his skin and made his fingers slip and slide on everything he touched. He felt like he could send himself crashing into the water with a misstep, sucking water into his lungs until he couldn't breath. 

'Are you going to, do the...' Bucky searched for the words. 'What you did on the film?'

Steve shook his head, but said, 'I could if you wanted.' 

All Bucky could think was _front row seats to a private screening_ , and there was something blocking the back of his throat. He coughed. 'Don't care.' 

Unclenching his fingers from where they were going white knuckled on the bedsheets, Steve brought one of his hands up to stroke at his cock through the fabric of his boxers. He wasn't looking at Bucky, not really, but he kept sneaking him glances, brief and embarrassed. Bucky's forehead wrinkled. 

'You sure you like this? Me watching.' 

Steve nodded, fast, keen. 

'You've gone red as a tomato, Steve.' 

'Uh huh.' He palmed himself then slipped his fingers under the waistband of his shorts to take his cock in hand. Bucky could see the shape of his bony digits through the taut fabric. 

'Why?' Bucky asked. The air in the room seemed to be getting thicker, hotter. Making him sweat-damp and feverish. 

A couple of strands of hair at Steve's fringe fell into his eyes as he shook his head. 'Ah, embarrassing. Shouldn't be doing this, not with you here.'

'You asked me to watch.'

'No, that's why I like it,' Steve gritted out. Bucky wasn't sure how he was supplying blood to both ends of his body with how mortified he looked. Especially with his circulation. Distantly, Bucky wondered if Steve's toes would be cold. 'I liked it when you said the film was just smut.'

'Well, it was,' Bucky breathed out. 

'Makes me feel--' Steve's hand was moving faster inside his shorts now, his hips twitching up, thrusting slightly in time with his strokes. Bucky bit down on his own lip, his mouth filling with saliva. He swallowed. '– dirty.'

'It was fucking filthy, Steve,' Bucky pointed out. He wasn't sure whether he was criticizing or encouraging. Steve seemed to take it well, letting out a long, low moan. His back arched. 

'—Shit.'

'You looked so wrecked on the film,' Bucky continued, his voice coming out hoarse. 'Your mouth all swollen and slick with your own goddamn saliva and jazz. It was sleazy, Steve. Fucking sordid. I had no idea you could look like that.'

'Ah—' Steve made a broken off noise, his hand moving even more frantically on his cock. 'Yes, no, I--'

'Hottest thing I ever saw,' Bucky admitted, and Steve bit back a pitched keening sound. 

'Yesss, knew it.'

'Shut up.'

Steve choked out a laugh. 'You shut up,' he said, then made a pained noise. 'No, no, don't. Keep talking.'

'When I saw it, I came right there,' Bucky said. 'Whole room of guys. Didn't even have to touch myself.'

' _Goddamn, Bucky_.'

'Yeah, I...' Bucky shook his head. 'Shit, how do you do it? Never thought you were that flexible, pal.'

'Not,' Steve gritted out breathlessly. 'Just, dunno. Spine or ribs or something, who knows.'

'Bet you could do other things with that gift.' 

Steve's hand that wasn't flying over his cock under the fabric of his shorts came up to his lips, hovering there. Bucky thought it was an odd movement, until Steve's lips parted and he filled his mouth with three narrow fingers, effectively muffling anything he had to say. Must be used to sucking on _something_ , Bucky supposed. 

The words _Steve_ and _oral fixation_ had never gone together in his mind, until now. 

'This is going to sound--' Bucky started before cutting himself off with a laugh that might have been a touch hysterical. Tonight really got away from him. 

'Mmmfph?' Steve asked, encouraging. It was clear that he was close, from the way his flushed mouth was sucking at his own fingers, and how his hips were losing their rhythm as they pushed up into his own grip.

'Bet you could fuck me and suck me off at the same time, couldn't you Steve?' 

Bucky's voice came out little more than a hoarse groan, and as soon as the words left his lips Steve was coming, his body stiffening and arching up off the bed with one last thrust of his hips. The sounds he made around his fingers were broken and lovely, and they nearly made Bucky come untouched for the second time that night. 

Nearly, not quite. Bucky's hips made an unbidden, twitching half-thrust. He swallowed a groan. 

Steve came down, his fingers slipping out of his mouth and glistening in the light coming in from the window like crème caramel. 'Nnngh,' he said, and then a soft smile and: 'Try that some time. Could totally do it.'

'Christ, Steve,' Bucky said. 'No, we...' he trailed off. 

There was a long moment of silence, before Steve sighed and said: 'In the morning?'

'Fighting, or fucking?'

'We'll see, I guess,' Steve said, and silence filled the room, thick like honey. 

Bucky eventually slept like that, suspended between two points. Steve slept much sooner, his breaths evening out until they rattled in that way that Steve's breaths often rattled, and soon, even that stopped and he just drifted off, still and calm. 

*

The next day, the air would be swirling with pollen that would come floating in through the crack in their slightly open window, and Steve would wake up to hay-fever. He would scrub his wrist under his blocked up nose, and climb out of bed and over to Bucky's. He would sit on the mattress, knees on either side of his friend's thighs, and he would mean to wake him up with his mouth, but he wouldn't. 

He would wake him up with a sudden sneeze, right into the collarbone, and he would apologize profusely while wiping mucus off Bucky's shoulder. Bucky would laugh until he nearly split his sides, and then Steve would be laughing too. The room would smell like the apples that someone downstairs was baking. 

But that wouldn't happen until daylight broke. In the meantime, Bucky slept as deeply as the deep darkness of the black sky, the stars hidden by the lights of the city. He dreamed of Steve filling his mouth with egg rolls, that roll of cash sitting on the table between them, ambiguous and questionable. He had no answers, especially not in the muddled mess of reality and imagination that was his dream, but he ate too, happily, and the only sound he heard was the whirr of a projector overhead, dust clinging to the air like pollen.


End file.
